I would like to talk about an aspect of creative work (writing, drawing, etc.) that doesn't get enough attention. It's the part about making a living. And in what follows, I am not talking about trying to earn enough to live in a mansion, own a summer home and a yacht, drive a Rolls, etc. I'm talking about living in a decent home with enough to eat and having health insurance and providing for one's family. A few dollars in the bank is also nice. Everyone has unexpected expenses and should have the dollars to coast through life's little emergencies.
We live in a society where if you declare yourself a businessperson, a lot of folks cheer you on as you amass wealth. That's more or less the defining scorecard on whether you're a success and worthy of admiration. When you're supposed to be an artist, it's a little different. An awful lot of folks expect you to create your Art for the sake of Art and nothing more…which might be okay if we lived in a world where food, rent, clothing and even the tools by which you create your Art were free. 'Til then, one must pay one's mortgage and Visa bill. A person may well be a capital-A Artist but first and foremost, he or she is a person with human needs and realities.
It is difficult to judge someone's life from afar. I have found that frequently, the guy you think is loaded is in actually in desperate financial trouble. And very often, people don't think of that at all. (How many of you were surprised to read that Burt Reynolds was broke?)
A few years ago, a Creative Person I know — I won't say if he's a writer or artist or actor or anything — took on a job for which others pilloried him as a sell-out. It was not worthy of him, they said. Not up to his high standards. He lowered himself for the Almighty Buck. It was like Olivier had gone out and dropped his pants in an Adam Sandler movie because someone had waved a big paycheck.
But to those who knew the Creative Person, it wasn't that at all. He hadn't done it because he was greedy. He'd done it because he was trying to save his life. He was in hock to Loan Sharks (in the guise of a perfectly respectable bank) for a large amount and they were talking about taking his home away…taking away everything he had in the world, in fact. He was literally "borrowing" money from friends to buy groceries for himself and his wife and kids.
I put "borrowing" in quotes because they all knew he'd never be able to pay it back. And he was running out of friends who were willing and able to make such "loans."
Needless to say, a Creative Person cannot be very creative in those circumstances. A painter cannot paint when he can't afford paint. A writer cannot write when his electricity is turned off. It's hard to create anything, good or bad, when your stomach is tied in sheep shank knots and you're panicked about the rent that's due in ten days.
Increasingly, I find myself discussing this when I speak to classes of wanna-be actors or writers. There's a certain romance to some about being in the situation where if you don't start getting decent-paying jobs soon, you'll be out in the street. I've also met some who think that putting themselves in that precarious position is a way to guarantee success: "I'll make it because I have to." It's been my observation that that rarely works. It's why there are more people in Los Angeles waiting tables who want to be Professional Actors than Professional Waiters.
What I suggest to them is that they find a steady source of income to tide them over while they wait for their break. Ideally, that might be in a related field — say, writing tech manuals while you wait to sell your screenplay — but that's not always possible. Second best would be something that gave you a steady income but flexible hours. You may have to, in effect, work two jobs at the same time: One to make your weekly nut and one to break into your chosen profession.
An actress I knew was getting small acting roles — a good start on a full-time career but not yet a full-time career. She signed with a "temp" agency to do typing and secretarial work and she did something I thought was smart. She told them to never send her to any job that involved show business. She'd drive to Downey to type mailing labels for a plumbing supply company but she wouldn't go type scripts over at Paramount. She didn't want people in the industry to see her and then think of her as a secretary who was trying to act. Getting "inside" that way might have been a pathway if she'd had no credits but she had enough that when she went in on auditions, they thought of her as an actress, not a secretary.
In my case, I was kinda lucky because I landed writing jobs right out of high school. They weren't necessarily the kind of writing jobs I wanted to make my career but they subsidized me while I got ever closer. When I was trying to break into writing for television, I had a decent income writing comic books and that made it easier to break into TV. When you're financially desperate, you can make some very bad decisions you wouldn't make if you had some cash banked. And a lot of folks just plain aren't inclined to hire you if you appear to be desperate.
But the main thing I want to get back to here is that a Creative Person has a duty to his or her muse and to his or her audience…but there's also a duty to paying down that MasterCard that's charging you 18.99%.
I know one Creative Person who's dealing now with a duty to pay a whopping tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service. He's doing jobs he might not otherwise do and selling things he might otherwise not sell, and some observers and acquaintances are saying he's greedy, he's a sell-out, he's just out for the Almighty Buck. But that's not what's really going on. What he is is desperate. (But of course, he doesn't want people to know he's desperate. Not only it is humiliating, it's also — see above — a good way to not get hired.)
And I want to also get back to something I said before: Sometimes, people you think are well-off are actually desperate. There are a thousand reasons why it happens but the point is it happens. Don't begrudge them the necessities of life: Home, food, car, health care, etc. Human beings need that and I don't care what anyone says. Actors, writers, artists, directors, producers, editors…they're all human.
Well, maybe not some producers…